Love cannot be defined. You may ask yourself, “How can we talk about something that can't be defined?” The answer is that there are so many different ways to define and describe love that there is no one definite way of saying what is right, wrong or bizarre in love. Everyone has different views and opinions on what love is and what it involves. It could possibly be seen as heinous to try and attach a single sentence to what love is. Love, the feeling not some biological mumbo jumbo, is purely opinionated. - Ripley
The problem here with approaching love with relativism lies under the very nature of relativism itself and we're quick to run into a few flaws in the implied logic.
If I were to look at a monkey, and I said it was a cat, and another person looked at that same monkey and said it was a dog, then who is right? Me? The other person? Both? The answer is that neither of us are right. The monkey is still a monkey. Regardless of the fact that we look at the monkey differently, it does not change what the definition of the monkey is. The only thing that changes is the perception of it. In other words, the existence of something is not conditional or opinionated. It either is or it isn't. We can spend all day arguing about what the monkey is but it doesn't change what the monkey actually is.
If multiple people defined love differently from each other and all were correct, then we lose the common ground of what love is. It would lose its meaning, and there would be no word associated with it to begin with. At this point, trying to define what love is would be like trying to describe what God says to his children. With no common ground amongst people to agree on, I could realistically state that love is nonexistent. But love does exist. We all feel it, there's no question about that. But how do we see love? Is there any evidence other than what we feel? Certainly! We witness this every day through the actions of happy partners, through the expressions of their love.
Many people confuse love for an expression or reaction, like sex. If I were to have sex with someone, does that mean I love that person? No. But can sex be an expression of love? Absolutely. Sex is sometimes sanctioned away from love into its own category so let's have a look at some other actions that tend to be overlooked. Expressions (and note that I'm using this word interchangeably with “reactions”) of love can include making your partner breakfast every morning, staying up real late at night while waiting for your partner to come home from work, or writing little poems on their body when they're sleeping so they can read them in the morning. Others could be a change of lifestyle, thoughts, and overall feelings. The possibilities are seemingly endless, but do any of these expressions mean I love my partner? No; these actions could just be lust. But can they be expressions of love? Yes!
One person once told me that beating your partner with a bat can legitimately be called love. That doesn't make any sense, does it? It's true that some people will actually beat their loved ones as a disciplinary action because of their love. But love cannot be synonymous with these expressions, such as violence, else I could walk into an orphanage, start beating children into submission, and call it “love” without ever being wrong. It is very important to not confuse love for expressions of love.
Love is an emotion, a feeling towards another person or object. But what is that feeling? Love. Ripley said that it could be “...heinous to try and attach a single sentence to what love is.” This is truer than spoken. You cannot define love as anything in the English language but with its associated word: love. Love is love, and the question should not be, "What is love?" but rather, "What causes it?” and, “How do we express it?" These are the things that vary between people and must be watched for, not love.
Click here for the original blog post by Ripley.
Click here for the original blog post by Ripley.
